Vic told me that she'd always wanted to try hang gliding, but had never got the opportunity. Easy, I thought, and hit the Google and found Sacramento Hang Gliding. What followed was 2 months of me booking trial lessons and blocking out Vic's time, only to be cruelly thwarted by the weather.

Eventually, though, we made it, and drove out into the middle of bloody nowhere and got totally lost. A call to George got us back on track, and we eventually met up with him as he arrived at the training hill. Which is, I kid you not, behind a firing range. So far, nobody's been shot, or at least nobody's admitting anybody's been shot.

I'd expected an hour or two, but the lesson was all afternoon, until it got dark. We often end up standing in a field in the dark chatting about all manner of nonsense. Anyway, Vic got to run down hill carrying a Condor hang glider a lot. She seemed to enjoy it, as we've been going back more or less every weekend ever since.

Slowly, we moved further up the hill, allowing flights of several seconds while she mastered roll and pitch control (there's no rudder, so there's no yaw control). We spent some time at the top of the hill, with George "kiting" her - he hangs on to the harness while she flies arm's length off the ground.